Bye Bye

As the NFL season came to a close there were several more coaching vacancies because owners weren’t happy with how the season played out. So much promise so little in the way of positive results.

I’ll be really honest with you; I’m not sure why any coach would want to go from the college game to the pro game. The pros really have to rely on the draft and free agency to build their teams whereas colleges get to recruit their needs.

Okay, I understand that some teams have troubles getting great talent but if they surround themselves with good, young coaches that are a bit hungry, raw talent can be developed into serious football players.

In the case of Seattle Coach Pete Carroll he started in the pro game and would eventually become a head coach at two teams before he found his groove at USC.

The Seattle job has become a real boost because the owner isn’t an ego maniac and trusts his coach and GM.

I believe that part of the mystique of going from the college game to the pro variety is the ego of needing to know if winning can be accomplished at that next level.

Nick Saban went from Michigan State to a national championship at LSU. Then the NFL came calling or should I say the Miami Dolphins, and that part of the brain saying ‘I can do this’ takes over.

The only problem is trying to constantly motivate professional athletes. Some of these guys are self-motivating and truly want to win championships.

Others are impressed with the big paycheck and realize that if they play, sit on the sidelines or get injured the money keeps coming in. Others want to be the main man and always have their name called. Each variety is problematic.

There are some great players that will run into walls for a coach and a team and their egos are never a concern. But there are others that make headlines off the field and are a real problem for the team that signed them.

For what so many of these college coaches make, you would think that they would find a school, get it to where they can consistently win, go to bowl games and win conference championships now and then.

But so many work hard to have a good season and also run and find a bigger paycheck at the big school a couple of states over in a bigger conference with more TV air time and great facilities.

Is this the best option because there is no doubt the pressure at some schools can be unbearable?

When your family is sitting amongst a bunch of early tailgaters that let everyone in the area know how much of an idiot the guy in the headphones is it can’t be fun for them.

I think some coaches that are treated well at their first job fail to reward the people that took a big chance at the young idealist only to find that it was the money and the glamour more than the happiness of being treated well.

I can rattle off several coaches names that should have invested in a moving van company for as many times as their families’ furniture was moved across the country in both directions.

But that is the life of a college or professional coach. And they don’t need to be head coaches because there are a bunch of position coaches and coordinators that change teams more often than they rotate the tires on their cars.

So next season we will see new coaches taking over new teams.

But the big contracts are alluring and if the money is going to be thrown around like confetti then there really is a good reason for these guys to go back and test their luck with their philosophy and hope like heck that what they are doing is going to work.

Otherwise they will get that visit from the owner or General Manager that says. “Bye bye! Don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out!”